Lynn Walsh: Argentina General Strike

[Militant No. 51, July 1969, p. 2]

Worldwide Repercussions of French Upheavals

On 30-31 May Argentina was shaken by one of the biggest general strikes in its turbulent history.

This massive movement, which affected all the main cities, was set off by what the capitalist press lightly called a ‚trivial incident‘: the prices of meals at Corrientes University were doubled. To the already impoverished students this was hardly a trivial incident, and they immediately demonstrated against this move. It was the brutal and violent repression of the students by the para-military police of the Ongania regime that, in a similar way to France last May, set off a wider movement of the students, and then of the workers and even the small businessmen.

Only at the end of last year Ongania, after smashing a big strike in the state-owned oil refineries with the assistance of the self-avowed “collaborationist” section of the C.G.T., boasted his ability to “keep the labour front quiet”.

His scheme has been rudely upset. Their indignation with his regime inflamed by the vicious repression of the students, and prompted by the students’ own action, the working class has demonstrated that its power to move in defence of its interests has not been broken by three years of dictatorship.

Under Latin American conditions the limited improvements in the economy achieved under Krieger Vasena (economic minister) make no difference to most people. By his standards it is a great achievement to have kept inflation down to 10% in 1968: but the run away inflation, a devaluation of the peso by 40%, constant price rises, and the banning of all wage bargaining, means that the workers fail to appreciate this. Per capita income has grown at less than 1% in the past few years. Recent reports show that the US, big-business interests, who control the main foreign investments in Latin America (38% in the case of Argentina) are extremely worried at the way things are going in their “backyard”. The Inter-American Development Bank warned that staggering high unemployment rates (30% for Latin America as a whole) and other bad social conditions are inexorably pushing the population towards serious and widespread unrest”. (F.T. 3/4/69). Governor Nelson Rockefeller was left in no doubt of this during his recent tour of Latin American countries: in all the countries he went to, he was met by demonstrations against the role of US. imperialism in the continent, forcing him to cut short his visit to general places, and miss Chile and Venezuela altogether. He has yet to go to Argentina, where workers’ leaders have promised him an even

warmer reception.

The so-called “Alliance for Progress”, through which the U.S. Claimed it would aid the development of the continent, has been a complete failure as Rockefeller has been forced to admit, Latin American capitalism, bound up with the landlords and latifundists, unable to assert their interests against the giant US. corporations, have. been powerless to develop society on modern lines, or to assert their rule through more stable representative systems.

It is the movement of the working class that has again brought the nightmarish problems of Latin America. to the fore. Recent events are an answer to those who saw the main challenge to the system as coming from the peasant movement. In Latin America, a semi-developed region with big industrial cities, it is inevitably the workers who will play the decisive role. In Argentina, which is one of the most developed countries, only 19% of the work force are engaged in agriculture compared with 32.5% in industry and mining and 48.3% in trade and services. Agriculture contributes only 15% to the national income, Whereas the Cuban Revolution, which was based on a peasant movement and despite its progressive character took an undemocratic, Bonapartist form, had relatively little effect on the workers throughout the continent, the May events in France have found an echo in the developments that have now unfolded amongst the students and workers on very similar lines in Argentina.

Following the student clashes on 15 May, demonstrations and further clashes involving workers and in some cases small shopkeepers, who closed up in support of the workers, swept all the cities. Martial law was declared, and hundreds of students and workers were arrested and given heavy sentences. But the workers answered with a massive 24 hour strike which both the “Collaborationist” and “rebel” C.G.T. were forced to initiate. Further clashed resulted in over 30 dead and 500 arrested.

Ongania’s dictatorship was given a severe jolt, though having had power momentarily taken out of its hands it has managed to re-establish itself for the moment. But the tremendous power of the workers, their impatience with existing conditions, their determination to fight, is shown by the inability of Ongania firmly to establish a reaction. On 5^th June, only days after setting them up, he was forced to dissolve the “Councils of War” which meted out sentences to those “inciting Rebellion”, and to get rid of the die-hards from his government. New moves by the workers, and further clashes, can be only a matter of time.

As in France in May last year, the conditions for a socialist transformation were there. The regime had already proved its bankruptcy; the middle class came out in opposition to the junta; sections of the police struck with the workers; the workers were more than ready to act. What was lacking was the organisation of the workers around a clear programme of socialist change. Undoubtedly the 24-hour general strike was a great show of strength: but by itself it could not provide a way out. Because of the absence of a clear alternative, a section of the workers still clings to the memory of Perón, who became president in 1946. Exploiting the differences between different classe and strata, and leaning on the workers, Perón did grant considerable concessions to the working

class, But stopping. short of change in the capitalist structure of society, his own fall was a foregone conclusion, and inevitably left the way open for the erosion of the concessions under more reactionary regimes.

Capitalist relations and imperialist domination stand in the way of any development in Argentina. Only a socialist solution, implemented by the working class and entailing workers’ control of foreign interests, foreign trade and all large-scale industry can carry Argentinian society as a whole into the 20 century. Linked up to such a movement any guerrilla struggles would then have a far greater revolutionary significance. The concept of a socialist development in Argentina alone is obviously ludicrous: only a socialist federation of Latin America, linked to a world development, would be a viable answer. And it is precisely the great strength of the working class in the semi-industrialised countries of the South American continent that will provide the motive force for a struggle for workers’ power based on workers’ democracy and an internationalist appeal to the workers of the world.